Re: (qo- words) vs (y- words)...?

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

> Could it be that <EVA qo + gallows + ...> == <EVA y + gallows + ...>? Has 
> anyone compared the stats of these two types of VMS words?

I should perhaps put this within a larger context: the underlying 
proposition is that the VMS aren't a single unified cipher or code, but are 
in fact a multiplicity of them (perhaps an overlapping ecology, or even a 
"society", recalling Minsky).

Then, each subgroup - for example, "ot-" words - would have its own 
encoding style (and hence its own statistics). In which case, there would 
be no central paradigm: any blip would be little more than subgroups' 
statistical signatures poking weakly through the overall noise.

This would fit the observation that, by 1401, it was already known that 
simple ciphers were vulnerable to attack: and this knowledge was to 
disseminate throughout Europe during the following years. So: a lot of 
effort was expended (by a lot of people) during the general time-frame of 
the VMS to find ways to make ciphers harder to break. Including a number of 
different (yet similar-looking) ciphers (as described) would be one way to 
achieve this.

For example, I've said that "ot-" words remind me of indices, or 
abbreviations, or referencing operations (though these may all ultimately 
be the same thing) into a codebook. The AAH (and especially the 
"conjunction" symbol-pairs) make this much more likely, ie because otolal = 
ot- plus two symbols, (not ot- plus four symbols) under that reading.

And similarly, "qot-" words quite probably indicate a subgroup, as do "yt-" 
words (etc).

But also, "d-" words (with the notable exception of "dain", which is 
perhaps some kind of meta-code?) appear to have their own quite distinct 
statistics - some days I think these look most like plaintext of anything 
there. :-/

So: within this kind of structure, we'd need to:-
(1) determine the basic alphabet
(2) determine the subgroup structure - what subgroups exist? how do they 
differ?
(3) attack all the subgroups in parallel - assign virtual assault leaders 
to each one

Has anyone already tried to build up a taxonomy of likely subgroups present 
in the VMS?

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....

PS: until you're sure of the underlying alphabet, who's to say that things 
like OKOKOKO aren't anything more than merely transliteration artefacts?

PPS: in all the above, there is an implicit assumption that the underlying 
alphabet is common to all the subgroups, though (cryptographically) that's 
not 100% certain... each subgroup *could* have its own transliteration 
style... but Occam's Razor (never a safety razor with the Voynich) would 
~seem~ to make this extremely unlikely. :-/  Besides, this would be the 
only way we'd ever get close to it if it did. :-)